The Global System for Mobile (GSM) communication system used in wireless communications employs a time-division multiple access (TDMA) scheme. Such a system allows multiple users to share a same frequency channel by dividing the channel into different timeslots. Each timeslot, also referred to as a “slot” in the present disclosure, provides an available transmission time for a mobile station in the system. Thus, the mobile stations transmit to and receive from a network in succession within their assigned timeslots.
For GSM, each radio frequency channel is divided according to a time division multiple access scheme into eight timeslots collectively referred to as a frame or a TDMA frame. These timeslots and frames repeat in time and provide a framework for communications in both the uplink (from a mobile station or user equipment to a base station or network) and the downlink (from the base station or network to the mobile station or user equipment).
In a GSM/EDGE radio access network (GERAN), a mobile station multislot class defines the maximum number of timeslots the mobile station can support for transmission and reception within any given TDMA frame. A mobile station may signal different multislot classes to the wireless network, depending on the features supported, e.g. General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Enhanced General Packet Radio Service (EGPRS), Dual Transfer Mode (DTM).